Archaeology

Chair: David L. Browman

Home Page: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~archae/archpage.htm Location: 118 McMillan Hall Telephone: (314) 935-5231

Archaeology provides the opportunity to investigate the material remains of past societies and cultures and the methods by which they are recovered, analyzed, interpreted and reconstructed. Archaeologists investigate the entire human past from the first evidence of tool use 2.5 million years ago to historic studies of the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries. The interdisciplinary archaeology program at Washington University seeks to integrate a wide range of directions — from paleoanthropology to historic and industrial archaeology and from classical archaeology to specialties such as paleoethnobotany and archaeozoology.

To provide a comprehensive understanding of archaeology, the faculty in the archaeology program emphasizes two approaches: the humanistic, which is represented by classical archaeology, and the social scientific, which is represented by anthropological archaeology. The anthropological archaeology faculty focuses on biologically based studies (paleoethnobotany and zooarchaeology) to research such questions as the origins of food production. The classical archaeological faculty capitalizes on ancient documents in investigating the more recent human past. Archaeology faculty members are involved in research projects in many regions, such as China, Africa, Greece, Peru, Kentucky and Louisiana.

News Stories & Tip Sheets:

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The secrets of the Sahara revealed Washington University geologist stars in a History mystery airing this month Jan. 11, 2010 -- Download Geoarcheologist Jennifer Smith stars in a TV documentary that solves a series of geological mysteries about the Sahara's past, explaining why there are marine fossils embedded in the blocks of stone from which the pyramids are made and drawings of people swimming scratched into the walls of desert caves.

The view from the teeth Ongoing evolution among modern humans Jan. 5, 2010 -- Download An international team of researchers, including Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D. professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, has reanalyzed the complete immature dentition of a 30,000 year-old-child from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal. The new analysis of the Lagar Velho child shows that these "early modern humans" were modern without being "fully modern."

A-maizing The impact of the diffusion of maize to the southwestern United States Dec. 8, 2009 -- An international group of anthropologists offers a new theory about the diffusion of maize to the Southwestern United States and the impact it had. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study, co-authored by Gayle Fritz, Ph.D., professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, and colleagues, suggests that maize was passed from group to group of Southwestern hunter-gatherers. These people took advantage of improved moisture conditions by integrating a storable and potentially high-yielding crop into their broad-spectrum subsistence strategy.

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Faculty Experts:

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Gayle J. Fritz Associate Professor of Archeaology in Arts and Sciences Expertise: human-plant interrelationship, plant remains, subsistence continuity, agricultural systems, paleoenthnobotany, develpment of agricultural systems, plant domestication, … Direct contact: (314) 935-8588 / gjfritz@wustl.edu

John Kelly Lecturer in Anthropology in Arts & Sciences Kelly's interest and expertise is in Eastern North American archaeology with a focus on the central Mississippi River Valley and the cultural developments related to Mississippian culture, especially the Cahokia site. A passionate interest in this center of Mississippian society began nearly thirty ... Expertise: North American archaeology, late precontact Native American societies, community plans, ceramic analysis, religion and symbolism, history of North American archaeology Direct contact: (314) 935-4609 / jkelly@wustl.edu

Tristram Kidder Chair, Department of Anthropology in Arts and Sciences Kidder's research over the past 15 years has focused on archaeological study of the evolution of human societies in the Southeastern United States. He has been especially interested in the emergence of social ranking, the development of domesticated food crops and the causal (or potentially causal) ... Expertise: North American archaeology, geoarchaeology, ceramic analysis, humans and climate change, plant domestication, Mississippi River, southeastern United States, … Direct contact: (314) 935-5252 / trkidder@wustl.edu

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Related News Clips:

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Ancient nomads offer insights to modern crises The New York Times and 1 others Aug. 8, 2007 -- Every summer for the past eight years, WUSTL anthropologist Michael Frachetti has come to the desert steppe that rolls like endless yellow waves across this expansive Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan searching for evidence of a vast, connected nomadic society. His work concerns Bronze Age nomads, and his scholarship is aimed purely at a historical understanding of how a preliterate society functioned more than 3,000 years ago. But his work coincides with a geopolitical reality that has important implications for American foreign policy makers: many of the countries that most trouble the West -- like Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia -- have government institutions that reflect a nomadic past.

Digging for the Truth The History Channel Sept. 22, 2006 -- WUSTL anthropology and archaeology professors Tristram Kidder and John Kelly were featured in a History Channel show on the people who lived in Cahokia.

Fossils reveal human drift to 'beauty' The Japan Times (Japan) Jan. 14, 2005 -- How did human diversity evolve? Natural selection is the traditional answer. But it is not the only one, as archaeologists discovered at the end of last year. WUSTL archaeologist James Cheverud and South African colleague Rebecca Ackermann suggest that while natural selection may select for or against some mutation, diversity which is produced through genetic drift has no adaptive advantage. What this means is that as human culture and technology developed, we became sheltered from the raw strength of natural selection. And with the relaxing of natural selection, facial diversity was free to increase.